Friday, June 27, 2008

Welcome to rainy season in Salone. Where gardens become swimming pools and roads turn into rivers. Yes, it's that time of year again. Slowly but surely we are getting more and more rain. First it starts with the rains at night. Then there are more and more downpours during the day. It's great because it is a lot cooler now. This week we've had a couple of good rain storms. One of which even managed to wash away part of the beach road with a car ending up in the ditch; kinda scary. Anyway, towards the end of clinic on Monday we had a huge downpour and we slowly watched our courtyard/garden turn into a swimming pool. It was quite a sight. Talk about a lot of water! Hopefully it washed out some of the mice that tend to hide out in the courtyard too.

Rain early in the morning usually means less patients at the clinic. Less meaning 45-50 rather than 60-65! Which to be honest, is kind of nice. Although I also realize it means that there are just as many (if not more) sick children out there, but they just aren't being brought to the clinic. That's the bad side of the rains. Even some of our follow-up cases don't show up on Wednesdays because of the rain. A few then come the next day and blame their lateness on the rain. Such is life in Sierra Leone.